Street Sweep: Alabama

Alabama
The Land of Cotton, the Heart of Dixie, the Yellowhammer State
Motto: We Dare Defend Our Rights

Oh, Sweet Home Alabama, you were certainly the perfect way to kick off this crazy project.

We began the week with learning the story of the "War Eagle!" cry, and how every true Alabamian knows when you start thinking all is lost - you give a "War Eagle!" shout and dig deep and dare greatly and keep going. So for the rest of the week when shoes were lost, when we were "too tired" to clean up our messes, when buses were almost missed - we dug deep and learned to shout "War Eagle!" and carried on.

*Were my children slightly annoyed by this new found Alabamian tradition? Yes. But I "dare defend" my right as a parent to force things like this on them.*

Things that they were not annoyed by: building "trolley tracks" for days in honor of Alabama being home to the world's first electric trolley system.

Cotton ball art for days. (Winter themed due to it being winter here in Utah -we dare defend our right to combine state projects with seasonal projects.)

Races for days in honor of Talladega super speedway and Alabamians - Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis.

Experiments with peanuts for days in honor of Alabamian George Washington Carver. I'm sure you've heard of him, he's the peanut guy who created over 300 products from the peanut plant.

Discovered a love and interest for sign language as we learned about Alabamian Helen Keller and watched a lot of sign language videos on YouTube.

We talked about the boll weevils of Enterprise, Alabama, and how we can find good amazing things during hard times.

We listened to a lot of Nat King Cole and played Sweet Home Alabama on repeat. We listened to a few of MLK Jr's speeches.

We taught the kids about calling 9-1-1 during emergencies since Alabama was the location of the first 9-1-1 call. Taught them what emergencies were. Taught them to be scared out of their minds if they called 9-1-1 and it wasn't an emergency. Then taught them again if they were scared out of their minds during an emergency to be sure to call 9-1-1. I'm sure it was all very clear to them in the end.

We learned about Alabamian Rosa Parks and the great civil rights battle and how we can still help today. We found a black owned business to support and wrote letters to our senators asking them to be nice when they make laws (my letter was a little more advanced, but not nearly as sweet). I maybe couldn't read one book about civil rights this week without choking on tears by the end - such beauty, grace, and power of so many brave people daring to defend their rights.

And then this week watching the events unfold at the Capitol, with people doing horrific things in the name of "defending their rights" when really they were desecrating the very system that gave them any rights at all. After reading so much of what was done in the past to defend rights, I felt so helpless just watching. It's the first time in my life I've ever written a letter to politicians. It's the first time I'm actively committed to being more involved and trying to help. To stand up with Rosa to dare and defend rights.

For state dinner, we had smoked chicken with white bbq sauce, fried pickles, blackberries, boiled peanuts(we dared defend our rights of trying a few of these and tossing the rest in the garbage), biscuits with chocolate gravy, and banana cream pudding.

I will be daring to defend my right to make those biscuits and chocolate gravy again and again.

And for the grand finale - we shot rockets into the sky in honor of Alabama building the first rocket that took men to the moon.

The first night we tried the experiment, it was the perfect night - we were going to shoot them into the sky with a gorgeous sunset backdrop, it was going to be beautiful and inspiring and magical. Turned out to be a beautiful disaster. The rockets never left the ground, but consistently flopped over. But war eagle and all that and we didn't give up and we dared defend our right to try again a few days later in our backyard with the sun blinding us as we looked into the sky. No magic sunset, but still the magic of science.

(They are fakers here. Before we even tried to shoot a rocket, I told them to look with wonder up in the sky since I would be trying to film the rocket going up and couldn't capture their faces at the same time. I was so naive thinking it was actually going to work.)

(Again, fakers. They couldn't see anything with that blinding sun.)

Thank you, Alabama. You were definitely sweet and felt like home by the end. We love you.

*Missed opportunities: Alabama was the birthplace of windshield wipers and super soakers and Harper Lee and Channing Tatum. We did nothing with any of these things.

Links:

War Eagle Story: War Eagle, The Tradition - YouTube and What "War Eagle" Means to the Auburn Family - YouTube

Boll Weevil Story: A brief history of the Boll Weevil Monument - YouTube

George Washington Carver: The Story of George Washington Carver | Amazing Scientists | SciShow Kids - YouTube and George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life - YouTube

Sign Language Videos: The ASL Alphabet: American Sign Language Letters A-Z - YouTube and 25 ASL Signs You Need to Know | ASL Basics | American Sign Language for Beginners - YouTube and Signing Time - Let's Make Friends! - YouTube

Smoked Chicken and BBQ Sauce: Slow Cooker Pulled Chicken with Alabama White BBQ Sauce - Spicy Southern Kitchen

Chocolate Gravy: Southern-Style Chocolate Gravy Recipe | Allrecipes

Banana Cream Pudding: Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding Recipe | A Bountiful Kitchen

Fried Pickles: Air Fryer Crunchy Fried Pickles + {VIDEO} (staysnatched.com)

Boiled Peanuts: Crock Pot Boiled Peanuts | The Blond Cook

How to find your state representatives/senators: Find Your Representative | house.gov and U.S. Senate: Contacting U.S. Senators

Rockets: This EPIC Bottle Rocket Flew Higher Than our Two Story House! - Frugal Fun For Boys and Girls (frugalfun4boys.com)